I was just listening to Chris and Ben's interview with Padres President Mike Dee on 1360 AM. I learned a few things:
- The Padres are installing a new sound system. Dee says that there have been complaints about the current sound system and the answer has always been to turn up the volume. "The way to make up for a bad sound system is to crank up the volume." With a new system in place people will be able to hear and understand the new PA announcer without being blasted by so many decibels. I'm happy to hear it, baseball over the last 15 years has taken the approach that louder is better, it's not.
- "The ballpark unfortunately was not the recipient of a lot of tender love and care in the past 5 years" -Mike DeeDee also says the Padres are taking great care in maintaining Petco Park, something he notes that the previous ownership did not do. They put in new flooring across the concourses. They've also been cleaning up rust and painting for the last several months. I can attest to this, when I went down to the ballpark on the day that Jerry Coleman died I was practically asphyxiated by all the paint fumes.
- Dee says they've also installed a new video board in the Park at the Park. It's 50% larger than the previous one. I had no idea, but this is great news for those of us that sit on the lawn.
- Speaking of video boards, they're hoping to install a new ballpark video board in 2015. The ballpark desperately needs this. The current board is older than the ballpark itself.
- The Padres plan on going back to the old San Diego standards in terms of fan giveaways. They'll all be announced later today. They'll have long sleeve t-shirt jerseys, floppy hats, sports bags, beach towels and even brown and gold jerseys for the series against the cubs.
- When the team wears their 1984 throwback uniforms on Thursday, Friday and Saturday against the cubs they'll be wearing both brown and white jerseys.
